There’s Something in the Air

Posted on by Paul Turner

Haze caused by wildfires can be seen in the sky in Kuala Lumpur

As soon as you land in Kuala Lumpur you can see it. In fact, you can see it even before you arrive as you look through the plane window. Or rather, you can kind of see it, because everything is a little blurry – if it is there at all.

‘The Great Haze of 2026’ (© Khairy Jamaluddin, former Minister of Health) is literally everywhere the eye can see. In my experience, it is often humid, drizzly, cloudy, rainy and many other adjectives where they came from, in the Malaysian capital, but this is something else.

Wildfires in parts of Indonesian Borneo – a landmass shared with Malaysia and Brunei (the only island in the world that is home to three separate sovereign nations fact fans) – have left much of South East Asia cloaked in a haze.

The fires are an annual event – if not to this scale. ‘Slash and burn’ tactics there are being blamed by indigenous and civil society groups in a lawsuit against the country’s government, whom they accuse of not having done enough to stop the fires.

The haze is not smog. It is something much, much more. Across the region people are being advised not to go outside for prolonged periods of time. Those with respiratory conditions are feeling the effects. Schools have been closed. You may have seen the concerns over the recent back-to-back Formula 1 Grands Prix in Malaysia and Singapore – with levels in the latter reaching ‘unhealthy’ levels days before the cars zoomed around the Marina Bay grid.

It is all the locals want to talk about as well. Our driver, Anual, was not happy about it at all as he took us to our hotel from the airport in his electric taxi – a vehicle in which he took much pride for its lack of emissions. Unaware of the sustainability credentials of his passengers, he still made sure to tell us all about the problem, and of his desire for an early start to the monsoon season to clear the air faster and sooner. It is three days later now, but he has yet to have his wish granted.

It is in this environment that delegates from around the world – our contingent from the Pentland Centre among them – have gathered in KL for the Global Tipping Points Conference 2026. Experts, politicians, businesspeople, researchers and many more are here to discuss the changing climate, and an example of what is happening all around the world and its effects is in the very air that they breathe (with greater than normal difficulty).

It has been impossible for the speakers and panellists to avoid the subject. Almost without fail it has come into discussions on politics, tipping points and planetary boundaries, science, and leadership. And that was just on day one.

Plans for a pre-conference excursion had to be cancelled because of the pollution. Delegates were advised before they arrived to avoid prolonged periods outdoors, and stay fully hydrated if they were outside. Bring your own medication was the advice for those with respiratory illnesses. Welcome to Malaysia!

The situation illustrates the urgency of the situation the planet faces. An unprecedented El Niño is already baring its teeth across the Pacific Ocean. Speakers from His Royal Highness Seri Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, The Sultan of Perak, onwards made mention of the situation that was on our doorstep as they urged action to correct negative tipping points and speed progress towards positive ones.

The point was also made that even with events like these and the resultant haze that is blanketing the region, it is still hard for people connect the result with the cause. They may see the smoke – it is hard to miss – and link it with the fires in Indonesia. But do they go beyond that and draw a line to climate change and how that makes such wildfires increasingly likely?

The words of those on the stage suggest many people do not, and we need do something about that because “the time for patience was some years ago. The time for urgency is now,” as our host Professor Jemilah Mahmood, Director of the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health (CPH) at Sunway University and general force of nature, told us. That is hard to argue with after a summer which saw fires across large parts of Europe and North America, drought conditions in many countries, and temperature records falling left, right and centre. We must draw the line between these events and climate change for those who cannot see it.

Professor Mahmood and the CPH sent out a briefing to ASEAN nations on the first day of the conference titled ‘No Harm Across Borders: An Accountability Agenda for ASEAN’s Air-pocalypse’. It asks for immediate, pre-emptive measures to protect populations from the impacts of air pollution. What happens next remains to be seen.

You can catch our observations and interviews from Global Tipping Points 2026 in a special series of the Transforming Tomorrow podcast, produced in association with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health. We are speaking to experts from across the spectrum of speakers and panellists, gaining expert insight and sharing our own perspectives on what we hear across the four days.

You can listen to them here – and with episodes being released on a daily basis there are more to come: https://podfollow.com/transforming-tomorrow

When you’ve finished that, take a deep breath, and be thankful if that doesn’t bring you out in a coughing fit. Or worse.

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